Political instability leading to job loss: Goa industry

Panaji, April 5 (IANS) The Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said growing political instability and a 15 percent drop in the tourism sector have led to nearly 100,000 people in the state losing their jobs. Alongside, according to chamber president Nitin Kunkolienkar, “rising civic unrest” was proving to be a deterrent for setting up new industries in this picturesque Goa.

“There is a 10-15 percent drop in the tourism sector. We have about one lakh unemployed youth in the state,” Kunkolienkar said Saturday in his address at the closing ceremony of the year-long centenary celebrations of the chamber.

“No major industries are coming to Goa, while we are busy protesting and agitating.”

Maintaining that a “handful of protestors were holding the state to ransom”, Kunkolienkar said: “Protesting is becoming a fashion. Goa is getting a bad name because of drugs. People coming here on vacations are disappearing. And yet these protestors do not raise a voice against this.”

Kunkolienkar also said special economic zones (SEZ) could be an answer to Goa’s economic and employment woes. “But these SEZ should have non-polluting industries like IT or pharmaceutical companies.”